Surgical navigation systems track the location of a medical instrument used during a medical procedure and display the location of the instrument on a display for clinician review. Surgical navigation systems may include an imaging device that acquires images of a patient undergoing the procedure, a tracking system that tracks the location of the medical instrument, and a computing device that provides the computational resources used to track the instrument and display the location of the instrument in relation to the acquired patient images. Images displayed by the surgical navigation system may include an instrument icon that is superimposed over the acquired patient images to indicate a location of the instrument relative to the patient's anatomy.
Surgical navigation systems may include a variety of tracking systems. In some examples, optical tracking systems may include an infrared emitter that emits an infrared signal, tracking spheres that reflect the signals, and cameras that pick up the reflected signals. An instrument may be equipped with the tracking spheres that reflect the infrared signals. The cameras in the optical tracking system may pick up the reflected signals and a computing device may triangulate the position of the instrument based on the reflected signals, allowing the optical tracking system to triangulate the position of the instrument. In other examples, electromagnetic tracking systems may include an electromagnetic field emitter that generates an electromagnetic field and a magnetic field sensor that generates signals in response to the field. An instrument may be equipped with the magnetic field sensor and a computing device may analyze signals received from the magnetic field sensor to determine the location of the magnetic field sensor in the magnetic field.